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“I’m starving,” she informs me before turning to the other cupboard and retrieving the pancake mix.
“Luna,” I whoosh out a stress-rattled breath. “I’m serious about this. You can’t just pretend this isn’t happening.”
“I’m not pretending, Kaleb,” she retorts as she takes out the measuring cups. “It’s not happening. It’s been two lousy fucking weeks, and you want to give up? I don’t fucking think so, you do not get to pull this.”
Dammit, I was trying to approach this sensitively, but her denial and avoidance tactics are chapping my ass.
I had poured just a couple fingers of Jack to take the edge off, as I was expecting a little pushback, but this is just jacked.
“Luna, come on,” I huff as I gingerly stand. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“No,” she returns as she measures a cup of the powdery mix. “You’re being an unreasonable fucking idiot, suggesting divorce after two not-so-blissful weeks. You’re going against your vows, you moron.”
“Look,” I say firmly, “I’m not the guy you knew before I left.”
“Bullshit.” She turns around and runs the water in the sink, narrowing her eyes at me as she looks between me and the measuring cup she’s filling. “One month ago, you sent me the most beautiful, loving bouquet of flowers and paintbrushes with a note telling me how much you missed me. One fucking month!”
“I was just barely holding onto that guy before I got my ass blown up, Luna. And in that moment, it all crumbled and I crawled out of the rubble… this,” I gesture up and down at myself. “I’ve changed, Luna. We’ve changed.”
“No!” She slams the water off and looks at me, setting the filled cup aside and resting her hands on the counter to look at me. She glares at me hard, and it’s now I notice that the gold ring around her pupil has returned and it is ablaze, burning brighter than ever as she lays in to me. “You crawled out of the rubble, period, Kaleb. You’re the one who sees you as weak, not me! You’re projecting and you’re scrambling to do away with the last good thing in your life before you lose that too!” she shouts.
“I am not your Kaleb anymore!” I shout back, grasping at straws.
“No, my Kaleb is still in there,” she snaps back, pointing at me. “He just got spooked and he’s hiding out. Hiding behind this rock solid I don’t give a fuck about anything veneer.”
I fall silent a moment, not knowing how to respond, because I can’t deny she may be on to something there… But it’s too hard to hope for.
“Well he’s not coming back out again,” I finally sigh out as she picks up the water and turns to dump it in the bowl with the mix. “Luna…” I try to speak again but I’m cut off by the egg-beater running loudly, combining the pancake mix. Shithead.
I rub my hands down my face in exasperation until she finally shuts it off, seemingly satisfied with the consistency of the mix. Finally, she turns around to face me again.
“So this was fraud?” she challenges in more of a statement than a question.
“No, it wasn’t fucking fraud, it–” I try to argue with a slice of my hand through the air, but she keeps rolling.
“Because it sure feels like it, Kaleb. Asking me to marry you so that your assets would be safe, and now that you’re back, you want to scrap the marriage? Like I was basically just a place holder?!”
“No!” I holler back. It doesn’t even occur to me to let her believe that to make this easier. I just can’t. I want what we used to be. I don’t want any more of what we’ve become, but I don’t want her to hurt or think that she was ever nothing to me, yet I can’t bring myself to say that either. I’m more vulnerable than I’ve ever been in my fucking life, and laying that out is sure to eviscerate what’s left of me.
“Are you saying you don’t love me?” Her voice is ominously low as she crosses her arms, and her eyes, while glassing over a little bit, are challenging me.
Words fail me. Breath catches in my throat where they should be, and at my silent response, she rounds the island. Taking a few charging steps closer to me, there’s a look of determined fury on her face I haven’t seen in years. “Are you saying you don’t love me?” she demands this time, her clenched jaw biting the words out hard. “Tell me! Is that what you’re saying?!”
“No,” the word comes out soft but swift, because no matter what favors that would do me in this moment, I can’t admit to it.
Pulling the collar of her t-shirt to the side, she reveals the moon I tattooed on her. “You fucking branded me if you’ll recall! You love me so much you permanently marked me, and I let you, because I love you, too!” she yells, her voice getting throaty with the passionate effort.
I inwardly wince at both her choice of words and her delivery. She’s handed me my ass before, but never like this. With how unhappy she’s seemed, I didn’t think I’d get this much of a fight, but I can hear the pain in her voice – feel it.
“Now,” she sighs, her voice coming back to the gentle lilt I’m used to. “I will move into the other bedroom. If you need space, I can understand that. I know we’ve been in each other’s face very suddenly and nonstop and it’s hard for us to reintegrate, but I’m not going anywhere, Kaleb Dominic. You may be willing to puss out on your vows, but I’m not. I’m here for better or worse.”
I glower down at her, refusing to admit I don’t have a good rebuttal for that, so I finally settle on something petulant. “I’m going to fucking break you, Luna. You’re either going to reach your boiling point or I’ll crush your spirit before that. That monster in there?” I point in the direction of the bedroom, “that’s who’s here in your Kaleb’s place,” I remind her, hoping that will do the trick. She can’t deny I scared the hell out of her when I saw bombs going off behind my eyelids like firecrackers, rapidly firing all around me. Screams, gunshots, and flashes of lights took me somewhere else in that moment, oblivious of what I was about to do to her. It scared the shit out of me, and I want her to think about that. Little do I know about the curveball I’m in for.
Her shoulders rise and fall with her deep breaths, but the passion in her eyes doesn’t falter.
“I dare you to give it two months.”
“What?” I feel my eyebrows go up.
